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German government comes out against Chat Control

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Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#41

Post by ZeroConcerns »

lukan wrote: post #20
ZeroConcerns wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You want the police to regularily intercept and check your signal chats for fraud No, that's not how lawful intercept laws work. I want police to be able to obtain a judicial order to intercept, for a limited time, in cleartext, the (Signal chats, or whatever other encrypted communications) of identified parties reasonably suspected to be involved with criminal activity. ChatControl is not that, and it's one of the…

"I want police to be able to obtain a judicial order to intercept, for a limited time, in cleartext, the (Signal chats, or whatever other encrypted communications) of identified parties reasonably suspected to be involved with criminal activity." They already have that in most (?) jurisdictions by now. With a warrant, they can install a virus on the device that will then do targeted surveillance. ChatControl is bad,…

> With a warrant, they can install a virus on the device that will then do targeted surveillance

Yeah, and that sponsors an entire malware industry!

I don't really know how I can make my position any clearer, but...

-Malware: bad!

-ChatControl (encryption backdoors): bad!

-Inability to do any kind of law enforcement involving "the Internet": double-plus bad!

-Enforcement of existing lawful interception laws in the face of new technology: maybe look at that?

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#42

Post by layer8 »

fsflover wrote: post #40
layer8 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t expect the general topic to become “finally settled” within our lifetime.

Unless there's a law ensuring our freedoms.

Laws can be changed, can be reinterpreted, there are no absolutes. What matters is who is in power, and how powers are kept in check. There is no finality to any of that. It’s a constant process of keeping things up, or failing to keep things up.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#43

Post by jMyles »

tokyolights2 wrote: post #28
jMyles wrote: post #26

A simple way to end the discussion: No matter what the state says, or what legislatures pass what laws, we're going to continue to live out our right to general purpose computing, including sending only what we choose to send over the wire, and encrypting content as we see fit. Now let's talk about something else.

I like the sentiment but it sounds very similar to Soverign Citizen nonsense. You can't just plug your ears and say that a law doesn't apply to you because you didn't consent to it.

The reasoning isn't about consent or social contracts, but about the evolutionary trajectory of humankind.

By way of example: in the United States, the 1st amendment to the constitution guarantees freedom of "the press" - it is referenced not by the right to print what one wants, but specifically in reference to the technology of the time, the printing press.

It's obvious that our evolutionary trajectory is one in which widely distributed general purpose computing is normal.

Making laws that contradict this is just childish, and at some point the adults in the room need to be willing to ignore them.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#44

Post by bgwalter »

"anlasslose Chatkontrolle" => Chat Control without cause.

Ok, maybe these are not weasel words in this case. The CDU probably wants to present itself as a friend of the people using a popular issue that they don't really care about. My suspicion is that this is exactly why the ChatControl issue is brought up yearly. It distracts people from wars, the economy etc., there is a big discussion and finally the government graciously comes down on the side of the people. Each and every year.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#45

Post by shevy-java »

This is strange, because not long ago it was Germany (!!) that pushed heavily for mass-sniffing of people. I don't trust this. People should watch very, very carefully what Germany is actually doing next. I would not be surprised if the mass-sniffing comes in a few months when nobody is looking.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#46

Post by ZeroConcerns »

rstat1 wrote: post #34
ZeroConcerns wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No? But lawful intercept laws were never about "criminals [talking] in person". There's a different set of laws for that...

And we all know those laws are never abused and are absolutely only used to target criminals.

No, there is definitely abuse of lawful interception.

But, in a jurisdiction with a functioning rule of law, these abuses can be spotted and remedied.

Doing the same for mass surveillance (such as ChatControl) or state-sponsored malware is much harder.

I'm advocating against ChatControl and malware, and proposing existing lawful interception frameworks as an alternative. But, apparently it's not my day :)

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#47

Post by macintux »

fsflover wrote: post #40
layer8 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t expect the general topic to become “finally settled” within our lifetime.

Unless there's a law ensuring our freedoms.

Ask the U.S. lately just how binding those laws are.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#48

Post by kragen »

shevy-java wrote: post #45

This is strange, because not long ago it was Germany (!!) that pushed heavily for mass-sniffing of people. I don't trust this. People should watch very, very carefully what Germany is actually doing next. I would not be surprised if the mass-sniffing comes in a few months when nobody is looking.

Zensursula von der Leyen is from the CDU, specifically.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#49

Post by ZeroConcerns »

qwopmaster wrote: post #36
ZeroConcerns wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawful intercept laws exist, and they've been sort-of functional for ages. Apps like Signal don't entirely fall within the scope of these, which is the cause of the current manic attempts to grab more powers. My point is that these powers grabs should be resisted, and that new services should be brought into the fold of existing laws. The prevailing opinion here seems to be that, instead, state hacking should be endo…

The prevailing opinion here seems to be that we’d really like for there to not be an omnipresent panopticon because protect the children or terrorists or, apparently, malware. If your imagination is particularly lacking on how this might be weaponized just remember that antifa is now designated as an terrorist organization in US, so you better not be a suspected member of it — as in, you best not have sent a buddy a…

> an omnipresent panopticon

OK, sorry to keep repeating myself here, but... I strongly oppose any kind of "panopticon" like ChatControl.

What I would like to see, is, say, Signal complying with lawful interception orders in the same way that any EU telecoms provider currently does.

So, provide cleartext contents of communications to/from a cleary identified party, for a limited time, by judicial order, for a clearly specified reason.

> pervasive surveillance of everybody and everything

This is exactly what lawful intercept laws are supposed to prevent. And yeah, of course, abuse, but under a functioning rule of law there are at least ways to remedy that, unlike with mass surveillance and/or malware...

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#50

Post by bigstrat2003 »

layer8 wrote: post #32
thevillagechief wrote: post #18

This rollercoaster is wearing me out. I hope this finally settles it!

I wouldn’t expect the general topic to become “finally settled” within our lifetime.

Freedom will not ever be finally settled in this life. Laws can be changed, constitutions amended, and of course the law is only as good as willingness to enforce it. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, as nice as it would be if that wasn't so.
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